WARREN -- After several years of working in sales and as a branch manager for a power transmission

WARREN -- After several years of working in sales and as a branch manager for a power transmission distributor company, Frank Masluk became the main driving force behind his own business.
Masluk started out by taking orders for industrial supplies at the kitchen table while his wife, Shirley, typed the orders in the dining room of their Boardman home.
In 1984, Masluk was ready to expand Torque Drives to a larger space, so he leased a warehouse in Warren.
In the early 1990s, Masluk moved his business to its current location at 317 S. Park Ave., and now two of his daughters, Kim Madrid and Melanie Masluk Culp, run Torque Drives.
The two sisters have formed a strong partnership, with Culp taking care of most of the outside sales, marketing and vendor and customer relations and Madrid handling many of the company's financial and day-to-day operations.
Frank Masluk is now semiretired, setting his own hours and keeping active in the business. For 19 years, Shirley Masluk had served as the company's vice president and handled bookkeeping, office supplies and other duties.
The business experienced rapid growth in the 1990s. In 1997 Torque Drives bought Mahoning Valley Supply of North Canton. Mahoning Valley Supply, which was founded in Boardman, now operates as a division of the Warren company.
Torque Drives is a power transmission components distributor that specializes in selling torque-controlled drive packages, mainly to original equipment manufacturers and industrial customers. The business serves the farming, mining, product fabric and other industries and is an authorized dealer for Duff-Norton, Dynacorp, Ohio Gear, Winsmith Speed Reducers and more than 100 other manufacturers.
Torque Drives sells in most of Ohio, western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. Products include V-belt drives, numerous sizes of roller chains and sprockets, couplings, gears, idlers, motors, conveyor chains and sprockets, electronic controls, hoses and hose fittings. Torque Drives also provides hydraulic products for industrial plants that need to replace machine components and other equipment, Madrid said.
In the early 1980s, Culp graduated from Youngstown State University with a bachelor's degree in business administration and worked as an office manager for the Better Business Bureau. Later, she served as a district sales manager for the Pontiac division of General Motors Inc. before starting at her father's company in the mid-80s.
Madrid started working for her father's company at about the same time as her sister, but only once a week because of child-rearing responsibilities. Three years later, however, she found herself doing full-time accounting work at Torque Drives.
Madrid praised the company's 14 employees -- seven in each location -- many of whom have been with Torque Drives for five years or more.
Culp said that business continues to improve and that she wants to hire more sales representatives. The company is looking for additional growth and hopes to expand into a larger geographical area, Culp added.